SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Kyle Crick sees role models wherever he looks in the Giants’ spring clubhouse. Few pitching staffs are as seasoned or accomplished as the group that includes Madison Bumgarner, Matt Cain, Jake Peavy, Tim Hudson, Ryan Vogelsong and Tim Lincecum.

Crick idolizes them all. But it was a Brave and a Cardinal who helped him understand how to take the next step in his development as a right-handed power pitcher.

Crick spent nearly all of December and January near Houston working out at the same sports medicine center with Shelby Miller and Michael Wacha. He roomed with Wacha and Miller lived across the street.

“I was lucky, being around a group of guys who would push me,” Crick said. “I talked to Shelby a lot: what he’d think about before games, after games, what he takes out of a start. We were kind of similar, both being drafted out of high school.”

Miller, whom Atlanta acquired in the November trade that sent Jason Heyward to St. Louis, made 78 starts in three full minor league seasons before graduating to the Cardinals in 2012. Crick will need more time to earn his promotion. The 22-year-old will enter his fourth full minor league season after coming to the Giants as a supplemental first-round pick in 2011.

Although Crick’s crackling, mid-90s fastball continues to make him the most elite arm in the Giants’ pitching factory of a system, he has had difficulty throwing enough strikes to pitch deep into games. Operating with a limit of 100 pitches, he completed six innings just four times in 22 starts for Double-A Richmond while going 6-7 with a 3.79 ERA.

The up-and-down season took some shine off his prospect status. He fell out of Baseball America’s top 100 and now ranks second in the system, behind catcher Andrew Susac.

“I believe last year was the first actual bump in the road for me in my minor league career,” Crick said. “It was more of a mentality thing, not trusting myself. I was just trying to do too much with my mechanics and not just throwing the ball. This offseason I got to a better mental state about baseball.”

He has impressed Giants manager Bruce Bochy thus far, bouncing back from some lackluster sessions early in camp and showing more consistent fastball command while tossing 4﻿2/3 shutout innings over two exhibition appearances.

A solid spring could convince the Giants that Crick is ready for the lively Triple-A ballparks in the Pacific Coast League. But he said his goal isn’t to earn a promotion.

“They want to see me go deep into games and dominate with my fastball, and whether that’s Double-A, Triple-A or the big leagues is up to them,” Crick said. “You’ve still got to pitch, no matter where you are.”

Crick is getting more consistent with his changeup, and his curveball is a snapdragon, but the key is getting ahead in counts to use those pitches. The key isn’t to throw more pitches in the zone. It’s to start them out in the zone, eliminate the easy takes and force batters to respect everything that leaves his hand.

Wacha helped Crick arrive at that conclusion, but that didn’t make the Cardinals right-hander immune to some good-natured bragging over the winter. Did Crick dare to mention Travis Ishikawa’s home run off Wacha that clinched the pennant for the Giants?

“I did,” Crick said. “Travis actually provided some good fun for us. I didn’t harass him too much. I might have brought it up once or twice.”

Tim Hudson knows the baseball gods have a sense of humor. So he fully expected that he’d have to cover first base on the first batter he faced this spring.

“Oh, I knew it,” said Hudson, after tossing an inning in his exhibition debut Wednesday.”

Hudson’s twice-repaired ankle survived the test, as did the rest of him. He pitched around a hustle double and a walk in a scoreless first inning of a 6-3 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers, striking out Martin Maldonado on a borderline high fastball.